Knocking at the Door: Gators Face UCF Tonight in Search of NCAA Third Round
Friday, November 18, 2011 | Soccer, Scott Carter
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Here it is. The Florida soccer team is back in the NCAA Tournament with a chance to move deeper into the postseason.
They are knocking at the door of the third round for the third consecutive season.
Knock, knock.
Who's there?
The Gators.
What do you want? You haven't visited us in a long time.
Yes, thanks for reminding us. We are out to change that.
OK, beat UCF and we'll let you in.
There you have it. If the Gators can defeat the Knights tonight at Pressly Stadium, they will advance to third round on Sunday to face the North Carolina-Baylor winner.
It's a place most of the 31 players on Florida's roster have never been. Not so for senior Tahnai Annis, who was a freshman in 2008 when the Gators beat UCF 2-0 in the second round of the tournament.
She knows what a win at this stage feels like, the exhilaration of moving closer to the ultimate goal. She also knows the agony that comes with losing, seeing your season come to an end early in the tournament.
It happened to the Gators in 2009 with a loss to Oregon State and again last season in a loss to Duke on penalty kicks.
“There is definitely a stigma around our round-of-32 games,'' Annis said. “I think what we're trying to do is not focus so much on winning this game coming up, but just more on what we need to do to be successful.''
That's what the Gators did in the first round against Florida Gulf Coast University. The result was one of Florida's most impressive wins of the season.
The Gators played with a physical presence defensively, moved the ball with their trademark efficiency on offense, and when plays where there to be made, they made them.
All three of Florida's goals came on headers, two by Annis and one by fellow senior Lindsay Thompson.
At 5-foot-1, Annis is the team's shortest player. She has played the tallest recently, inspired by that ultimate goal hanging out there later in the tournament.
Junior forward Erika Tymrak recalls a recent conversation with Annis. As the tournament was about to start, Annis told Tymrak now is not the time to hold back.
Annis then went out and threw her body all over the field and her head at the ball in the FCGU win.
Tymrak didn't blink an eye.
“Tahnai is the type of player that is going to sacrifice her body to score a goal or get a shot off,'' Tymrak said. “She doesn't care if she is going to get hurt.''
The Gators followed Annis' lead, never letting up against FCGU. Thompson, another of the team's five seniors, added a header of her own in the 300th win in program history.
While the Gators are downplaying the importance of defeating UCF and finally making it past the second round, they don't need a history lesson.
“I think this team is one of the most talented I've been a part of in my four years, but we've had the most struggles,'' Thompson said. “We have an extra bit of motivation because we're trying to prove that the losses we have aren't really the team we are.
“It's my last year to do that. We couldn't ask for better competition to do that, to get past where we've been.''
To move deeper into the tournament and a potential showdown with traditional power North Carolina on Sunday – the Gators won their only national title 13 years ago by defeating the Tar Heels in the championship game – they must beat a UCF program they have faced five times previously in the NCAA Tournament.
The Gators are 3-1-1 in those games, advancing on penalty kicks in the 2007 meeting. The next season the Gators beat the Knights 2-0 before falling to Texas A&M in the Sweet 16.
“There is a little bit of symmetry there,'' Thompson said of this year's matchup. “It would be nice to do that again.''
UCF is led by a strong defense that recorded 10 shutouts, so the Gators will need to play with the kind of physical toughness and crispness that head coach Becky Burleigh has preached all season. Burleigh said she has sounded like a broken record of late in team meetings.
“It's going to be a hard game, a physical game,'' Burleigh said. “We've never had an easy game against these guys.''
A good start would certainly help. The Gators are 13-0 when they score first this season, and only 4-7 when they don't. The teams didn't play this season, last meeting early in the 2010 season.
The Gators won on a pair of goals from Annis.
The smallish senior once more came through in the clutch in the first round. She'll try to do the same against UCF. If the results are similar, the door to the third round will finally be open once more.
“We put it together on both sides of the ball,'' Annis said. “We didn't let down at all after scoring one goal. We weren't satisfied even after three. We just kept going at them and I think that's the kind of mentality and attitude we need going forward.''
